Burdette into the 2nd round...shaky hold, but put it away. Not the same player that choked in the 2011 finals against Embree. Haha

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Actually, Burdette made it into the 3rd round! Hradecka was a 2nd round opponent. She beat Timea Bacsinszky in round 1. Burdette will most likely play Sharapova next. Even if she loses, it has been a fantastic tournament and summer for Mal!

Steve Johnson also just finished a straight set win over Rajeev Ram! Klahn is about to get on court against Jurgen Melzer.

If a guy is eligible to play the "zoo", regardless if they are in college, professional or not, they would be stupid.

Seriously, main draw of USO, priceless.

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Yea, JMac might not get that DN had a route to get into the main draw by going for the auto WC. It's about the same difficulty doing it through the Zoo as it is through quallies last week...if he would have even gotten into quallies.

Definitely a good move by DN. never know if you'll get another USO shot. Take em when you get em.

Very impressive indeed! I thought Johnson had a good shot at winning his 1st round but I am impressed by the others. Burdette in the 3rd round? Wow! But the most impressive win for me is Brad against Melzer. I watched parts of the match and I was impressed by his will to come back in the match early on after losing the first set. I didn't think he would win it but he did with gusto and he has really impressed me, once more...!

Incoming Sooner Axel Alvarez beat Clay Thompson 6-3 6-2 in the final round of future qualies. Looks like John Roddick found a pretty darn good player.

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How did you find out already? I've been looking at the itf website for updates and didn't see it. This is really exciting for us, between Paval, Alcorta, Webb, Siributwong, Alvarez and Starkhovsky, we got a pretty deep team this year. So deep that Mihov transfer and we probably won't lose much.

I am surprised no one has discussed this here yet. Tiburon Challenger in the SF bay area. Plenty of former college players battling it out this week. QF: Johnson won an easy match against Kudla. Seriously from what I saw, Kudla doesn't have any weapon to hurt Johnson and I wonder why he didn't go to college instead of turning pro...

R Williams lost a long 3 setter against Sock.

Klahn played a very close match against veteran B Reynolds, and lost in the tie-break of the 3rd. I really thought Klahn had the match. He was down 3-0 in the 3rd and managed to win 4 straight games to lead 4-3. He was a couple points away from the match on Reynolds serve at 5-4.... very very close. Reynolds had to dig deep and serve extremely well to win this. Good effort Brad!

I am surprised no one has discussed this here yet. Tiburon Challenger in the SF bay area. Plenty of former college players battling it out this week. QF: Johnson won an easy match against Kudla. Seriously from what I saw, Kudla doesn't have any weapon to hurt Johnson and I wonder why he didn't go to college instead of turning pro...

R Williams lost a long 3 setter against Sock.

Klahn played a very close match against veteran B Reynolds, and lost in the tie-break of the 3rd. I really thought Klahn had the match. He was down 3-0 in the 3rd and managed to win 4 straight games to lead 4-3. He was a couple points away from the match on Reynolds serve at 5-4.... very very close. Reynolds had to dig deep and serve extremely well to win this. Good effort Brad!

yes, sock and johnson have bigger games, kudla doesn't base his game around huge weapons like they do - but they're both ranked below him despite good us open showings (sock 220, johnson 174)

klahn and williams aren't close to his ranking (klahn 316, williams 277)

i think kudla would have totally wasted his time in college - he would've been too fit and steady for most college players to compete with - wouldn't have been stretched to develop bigger shots since he wouldn't have needed them to win comfortably - on tour he's pushed to up his game, and clearly he's doing pretty well with that ranking at 19 yrs old

First time I've read a mikej post about an American outside the top 100 whom he didn't feel would have benefitted from college. Not that I disagree, just pointing out the historical significance.

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ps, sock is outside the top 100 and i've never been critical of his decision to go pro...so i wouldn't say kudla is the first...but yes i have a high threshold for american juniors not making a dumb decision going pro

ps, sock is outside the top 100 and i've never been critical of his decision to go pro...so i wouldn't say kudla is the first...but yes i have a high threshold for american juniors not making a dumb decision going pro

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I think sponsorship had a lot to do with Sock. He had expenses covered from the jump by going pro. Without those perks, he'd have been ok going to college for a year to boost his resume. He was in a no lose situation in that either scenario was going to be fine for him. Kudla took on a little more risk.

yes, sock and johnson have bigger games, kudla doesn't base his game around huge weapons like they do - but they're both ranked below him despite good us open showings (sock 220, johnson 174)

klahn and williams aren't close to his ranking (klahn 316, williams 277)

i think kudla would have totally wasted his time in college - he would've been too fit and steady for most college players to compete with - wouldn't have been stretched to develop bigger shots since he wouldn't have needed them to win comfortably - on tour he's pushed to up his game, and clearly he's doing pretty well with that ranking at 19 yrs old

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OK, 166 at 19yo is not bad, but by no means amazing either. But that's not the point. He does have a pretty good resume and he's fit and moves well which is all good. But he does not have any big weapon, no big serve, no big FH, no big BH... He has not beaten anyone better ranked than 88 (Kamke) this year and most of his wins are against guys ranked above 200.
He has had some tight matches against good players but I have a hard time seeing him move up the rankings without a drastic change in his game. He needs to develop a big weapon! Maybe he can, and that's great for him, but when I watched him play against S Johnson in Tiburon, he was really powerless. Johnson had an easy time to win this with his big serve and FH.
Just saying.
Watching B Klahn yesterday who lost in QF too, Brad has more weapons (better serve and FH), and in only 4 months on tour he has already beaten a world top 35 and former top 10, and nearly beat Blake (77) last week. Now, I agree it's not enough data to draw definitive conclusions but that's the feeling I have watching these various guys. Kudla is a very good player but he has to change his game if he wants to move up.

OK, 166 at 19yo is not bad, but by no means amazing either. But that's not the point. He does have a pretty good resume and he's fit and moves well which is all good. But he does not have any big weapon, no big serve, no big FH, no big BH... He has not beaten anyone better ranked than 88 (Kamke) this year and most of his wins are against guys ranked above 200.
He has had some tight matches against good players but I have a hard time seeing him move up the rankings without a drastic change in his game. He needs to develop a big weapon! Maybe he can, and that's great for him, but when I watched him play against S Johnson in Tiburon, he was really powerless. Johnson had an easy time to win this with his big serve and FH.
Just saying.
Watching B Klahn yesterday who lost in QF too, Brad has more weapons (better serve and FH), and in only 4 months on tour he has already beaten a world top 35 and former top 10, and nearly beat Blake (77) last week. Now, I agree it's not enough data to draw definitive conclusions but that's the feeling I have watching these various guys. Kudla is a very good player but he has to change his game if he wants to move up.

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yeah, like you said, i wouldn't draw too much from "nearly" losses - kudla also nearly beat blake, losing 7-5, 5-7, 5-7 in sarasota - and nearly beat roddick (losing 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 4-6 after he won four solid matches while making it through qualifying and beating sock in san jose)

it's a fair question about his style of play, but i'm not convinced he has to develop a massive weapon, just improve everything over time across the board - i still think he can succeed to a lesser degree than ferrer with that style, reaching the 50-60 in the world level for a few years perhaps if he stays healthy

probably one of the guys like sock, johnson, klahn with bigger weapons will end up being a better pro than him while a couple will not - too early to tell which of those guys will make the most of their weapons (i'm guessing johnson)

3 Miss State freshmen qualified in Pensacola with Pedro Dumont, Jordan Angus, and Romain Bogaerts are winning in straights in the final round of qualies. Dumont meets former Illini #1 Dennis Novolo in the 1st round, Angus meets former Buckeye #1 Chase Buchanan, and Bogaerts meets fellow qualifier Oleg Dmitriev who I know nothing about.

Connor Glennon and Joe Salisbury from Memphis both came through qualies too. Salisbury beat MSU freshmen Stefan Vinti 7-6 in the 3rd and Glennon beat former Gator/TarHeel Joey Burkhardt 6-4 in the 3rd. Salisbury meets former Michigan #1/2 Jason Jung and Salisbury meets Zimbabwe's Takanyi Taranganga in the 1st round

Florida's Florent Diep knocked out former FSU #1 Jean-Yves Aubone 7-6 in the 3rd to qualify for the main draw. Diep has racked up some impressive wins of late. Diep draws Bjorn Fratangelo in the 1st round.

Blaz Rola into the semifinals of the Marbella Spain Challenger. If he goes out tomorrow his ranking will jump to a career high of around 310 or so. A spot in the finals would boost him to around 285 and a championship would get him to around 250. Rola's current ranking of 362 is a career high. I just don't see him coming back to Columbus with a ranking around 300 or better. He only has 2 points to defend from a January future so by playing pro full time he can easily push his ranking into the 150-200 range if he continues playing at the same level. This year he has won 4 futures, finished as a runner-up twice, and this is his best result at the Challenger level.

Ole Miss's Nik Scholtz won a South African Future yesterday - Draw. His 2 closest matches came in the Quarters against former Florida Gator Tyler Hochwalt and in the Semis against former Ole Miss Rebel Tucker Vorster

I'd never seen Meister or Nevolo play, but after their first matches I knew they'd likely be in the final. They play today at 10:30 a.m.

Inbar beat Farren in a really good match 6-7, 7-6, 10-4 (played a match TB by their own agreement). Inbar then retired to Meister (6-1, ret.).

On the top half of the draw, Borvanov beat Battistone 4 & 3 in one quarter. Nevolo just destroyed former UNLV player Kielbowycz 6-1, 6-2. In the semi finals, in a very, very high quality match Nevolo beat Borvanov 4 & 4. Both players have remarkable foot speed and both are extremely consistent players.

Unfortunately, I have to miss the finals today. Should be a good match.

Good run in India for some former college players. Sanam Singh of UVa won the first two Futures of a three-tourney sequence. Torsten Wietoska of Duke made the semis of the first two, and is now in the finals of the third one, the Belgaum Futures, against Michael Shabaz of UVa. Final was played many hours ago, but results are slow to post. Shabaz won his second doubles title in a row with Amrit Narasimhan, who played two years at Tyler JC and two years at Memphis. Teddy Angelinos of UVa also won some singles and doubles matches at this tourney.